From the category archives:

Materials

Baked Icecream (that, um, melted. Help?)

November 3, 2011 Activities

I‘ve tried to make meringue a couple of times and it hasn’t worked, so that was probably a sign that I shouldn’t have done this. Or at least that I should have tried it several times before putting it in the blogging schedule. But given trips to Melbourne and husband travel and another trip to [...]

Quiz – The Water Edition

November 1, 2011 Lists

Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink. Why does ice float? Is there water on the moon? Why is the Dead Sea called that? Do you need to drink 8 glasses a day? And what’s the piece of Australian memorabilia in the picture, and what the heck does it have to do with water? [...]

Kid Questions: Why do we use glass for mirrors and windows?

October 17, 2011 Activities

At first this sounds really weird – we use glass for windows so we can see through it, but we also use glass for mirrors and we can see ourselves. Why does it act differently in different things? The answer is that it isn’t really the glass that makes the mirror. Good quality glass is [...]

Sand Jars

October 13, 2011 Activities

We have all sorts of rocks and dirt around my house. I know this partly from what ends up in my bag or pockets on walks, partly from what I pour out of shoes, and partly from what I scrub off the bath. They’re a decidedly recurring fact of life, so I decided to do [...]

Quiz – The Rainforest Edition

October 11, 2011 Life and Living

Back to another ecological zone, one that’s in the news a lot. What do you know about rainforests? We all know clearing rainforests is BAD, do you know why they are so fragile? Where are your country’s rainforests? What’s big, blue, black and wears a helmet? What is the food of the gods? And what [...]

Cooking Answers

October 7, 2011 Energy and Change

How scientific a cook are you? Close your eyes and click back for the questions. 1. Meat goes brown because of reactions in the proteins caused by heat or sometimes chemicals. That’s why some marinades will make meat look ‘cooked.’ The main protein in meat is called myoglobin which has a heme ring [...]

Plastic Milk

October 6, 2011 Activities

I‘ve been wanting to do this for ages but didn’t think it would be good with the girls because it needs cooking. But now I’ve done it without them a couple of times it’s so simple and I think they’d love it, it will be coming out again. It’s using just milk and vinegar to [...]

Wordless Wednesday – Egg Geodes

September 21, 2011 Activities

These were inspired by Kate of Picklebums way back at Easter time. We made several different solutions and colour coded them, red is sugar (complete with ants), blue was bicarb, green was salt and yellow was laundry detergent, which didn’t set. The girls loved it.

Animal, Vegetable, Mineral

September 8, 2011 Activities

We do a lot of long distance driving and this is a favourite game with the big girl, although zebra is usually a pretty good bet. And some of the descriptions are a little bit, weird. I’ve been using it as a bit of a theme seeing it’s something the girls already know, and we’ve [...]

Planes, Trains and Automobiles Answers

September 3, 2011 Energy and Change

Someone did very well yesterday, unfortunately they’re anonymous but congratulations dj302. If you want to join in, close your eyes and click back. 1. The tread on tyres works by giving water somewhere to flow. Imagine you put a big flat tray onto a puddle. It would slip and skate around because not [...]